Outer Space Will Soon Have the Most Powerful and Largest Telescope

(Engineers in front of the completed James Webb Space Telescope. NASA/Chris Gunn)

After several years of delay and an overrun of $7.7 billion, NASA’s most powerful and largest telescope will blast off into space in 2018. The James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) giant mirror is now complete and ready to undergo various rigorous tests.

The JWST is the biggest telescope that’s ever built. It’s main part was unveiled Thursday at the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA in Maryland. It has 100 times the observing power of Hubble and has 18 hexagonal mirrors that are 21.3 feet or 6.5 meters across and a tennis-court sized sun shield. Its mirrors are all plated in real 18k gold that’s 1,000 times thinner than human hair.

October 2018 Launch

The new telescope is expected to launch in October 2018, according to NASA. Its mirrors have already accomplished the Center of Curvature test (optics testing) and will be undergoing a series of tests to make sure that it can withstand the rigors of the space launch.

Upon launch, the telescope will be positioned at Lagrange point 2 (L2), with a region of gravitational stability beyond the moon’s orbit. From that position it will be able to capture more awesome scenes of the cosmos because it will have an unobstructed view.

Unlike the Hubble, which provides visible view, the JWST will observe the cosmos in infrared. It will be able to see through cosmic dust to view planetary systems, galaxies, stars and possibly exoplanets.

Production Delays

It took 20 years for the massive telescope to be produced. The original planned launch of JWST was in 2011. At that time, the projected cost of the huge project was $1 billion. Through the 7-year delay, its cost rose to $8.7 billion. There is still another possible problem the JWST faces once it’s been launched – its distance from Earth. If something goes wrong, it cannot be serviced immediately. Hubble, which is positioned into Low Earth orbit, had several manned repair missions to upgrade it and fix some faults that developed.

Far from Finished

The JWST’s construction is finally complete, but it is not ready to be of service, contrary to what other reports said. For one thing, its 18 expensive mirrors are still to be polished. These gold plated mirrors are made of lightweight and strong beryllium metal. NASA engineers still have to finish the reflective sun shield and the main chassis or bus of the spacecraft. The mirror is the most complex of the entire project’s parts. It is 7 times larger than Hubble’s mirror. It is segmented because the parts will partially fold up to fit into the rocket. Origami experts were consulted by the telescope’s designers so it can efficiently fold to fit its bus.

For the next two years, the JWST will be subjected to torture to see if it can withstand the launch. The mirrors are undergoing vibration test at Goddard Spaceflight Center, with the mirror segments tested with a force that is more than 10 times the pull of gravity.

It will then be placed at the Acoustic Test Chamber where 6-foot wide speakers will blare out 150 decibels of sound for 2 minutes each round. If it passes this test, it will fly to the Johnson Space Center in Texas aboard a huge jet. It will be placed into an enormous cryogenic vacuum chamber where it will be left to freeze under extremely cold temperatures for three months.

Around August 2017, if there are no problems, the JWST will be shipped to the LA facility of Northrop Grumman where the mirrors will be attached to the sunshield and its chassis to complete its assembly.

Finally, with the assistance of the European Space Agency (ESA), the completely assembled telescope, with its mirrors folded will be shipped to its launch facility located close to Kourou in French Guiana.

Due to a bulge close to the equator, the Earth’s spin at French Guiana is faster – over 1,000 mph, which will help cast the Webb Telescope into deep space faster. Arianespace, the manufacturer of Ariane 5, will load the James Webb Space Telescope on top of the rocket. It will take roughly 30 days before the Webb Telescope reaches its destination. While in flight, it will slowly unfold over a 2-week course.

The James Webb Space Telescope’s mission is to provide scientists further information about the Big Bang, investigate potentials for life in outer space and ascertain the evolution of galaxies for the next 5 to 10 years. It’s named after James E. Webb, the second administration of NASA and the leader of Apollo space missions to the moon.